Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia

Book Description

This book completetly changes the established and conventional view of prehistory by relocating the Lost Eden—the world's first civilisation—to Southeast Asia. At the end of the Ice Age, Southeast Asia formed a continent twice the size of India, which included Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Borneo. In Eden in the East, Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward the astonishing argument that here in southeast Asia—rather than in Mesopotamia where it is usually placed—was the lost civilization that fertilized the Great cultures of the Middle East 6,000 years ago. He produces evidence from ethnography, archaeology, oceanography, creation stories, myths, linguistics, and DNA analysis to argue that this founding civilization was destroyed by a catastrophic flood, caused by a rapid rise in the sea level at the end of the last ice age.

Customer Reviews:

Ground-breaking book.......2007-01-10

Stephen Oppenheimer is the first author to treat this subject in an extensive manner using both scientific evidence and comparative mythology. He brings together a wide range of complimentary fields to support his theory on the rise of Southeast Asian during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. A must read for those interested in new historical perspectives.

Well Researched & documented.......2006-07-29

Interesting premise which is painstakingly researched and documented. Oppenheimer makes a very cogent argument which if true will completely rewrite history!

Well Researched Tome but incomplete........2002-08-15

Can be heavy going in the detail, but is the product of a 'Good Analytical Mind'. I really enjoyed the introduction to Religious & Folkloric Analysis, and to Linguistics, & Genetics (a fast growing symbiosis).
Another book in this growing category is 'Genes - People and languages' by Luigi Lica Cavalli-Sforza ISBN: 0140296026.
A classic analysis. It makes one realise we are on the brink of discoveries regarding early human history similar to the unfolding of the age of the dinosaur in the last century.
This book layed the foundation and blazed the trail for 'Underworld Flooded Kingdoms' by Graham Hancock ISBN: 0718144007 (USA - 1400046122 ).
Lounes Chikhi, from University College London (UCL), UK, and colleagues looked for markers by analysing mutations (errors) on Y chromosomesstudied rare mutations called unique event polymorphisms (UEPs). These are not thought to have occurred more than once in recent human history.

However I feel that the book is missing some intermediate stages and can be viewed, with valid reasons, as focused only on the South Asia region.
the main focus of the book is the region east of indonesia, including Micronesia and Polynesia.

The early Polynesian and related groups traded and travelled the Pacific from Madagascar in the West to Easter island in the East.
For a reference see 'Man Across the Sea (Univ. of Texas 1971) by Riley, Kelley, Pennington and Randa.

Latin America:-
Recognising that the Polynesians got to Rapa Nui (Easter island), only 2,000 from Chile (where the nearest other Polynesian island is 1,500 mile east), there is little analysis and mention is made of Latin America.
In Rapa Nui per folklore is said to have been populated by long & short eared peoples (one group from the East and the other from the West).
With the Humboldt current from Peru & Chile would have brought this island within a week or two sailing.
A more inclusive reference would have included a section on Inca (Peruvian & Chilean) contacts.
Witness the late Palaeolithic remains and rock art found by Dr. Walter Neves (Univ. of Sao Paulo) and Marcello Caosta Souza in the Serra da Capivara, Pedra Furada and Lagoa Santa, Belo Horizonte and in Tierra del Fuego again by Walter Neves.

Africa & Australia:-
However, it has no reference to the cradle of human-kind, Africa nor to Australia ?
Both ancient and habitable continents covering the period in question, late Palaeolithic, witness 'Australian' rock-art specialist Grahame Walsh.
We know from recent finds in Southern Africa and lately on the Congo river that there many settlements existed here. I believe this is a serious shortcoming. We know for example that towns and later settlements existed along the coasts of Africa during Roman times.
Why not provide any reference to the region around Madagascar on the African coast ?
And what archaeological discoveries await the Ivory Coast, the Canary islanders and the Congo river delta ?

Unanswered Questions & Puzzles :-
With all this navigation, the study of the astronomy etc how come little is or no written record has been found ?
Is it, as explained in the book, the joining up of the cycles of agriculture with astronomy with power and religion and control ?
Thus have we missed important sources of ancient knowledge ?
For instance to date there is no translation of the Rapa Nui 'Rongo-Rongo' tablets and their similarity to Indus Valley tablets.

What treasure throve of hidden knowledge lies with the Basque fisherman (who since time began knew the coast of Canada and Iceland).
As human markers are being identified that help unravel these ancient migrations, See Mapping Human history, 'Discover the past thro Genes' by Olson Steve and Mapping Human History by Prof Steven Rose ISBN 08706667979 and 7 Daughters of Eve by Sykes Bryan ISBN: 0593047575
When will similar markers be found for domesticated animals, such as pigs, dogs, goats etc or fruit, rice, cereals, sugar cane and sweat potatoes.

In Conclusion:-
I cannot help but think that this unique book has instigated a whole new area that we will be viewing in documentaries in the not too distant future, when the rest of the world catches up.

Naoise O'H

It Ought to Be True... It Also Ought to Be Easier to Read.......2002-06-17

The beginning of human civilization as you learned it in school goes like this:

Human beings (homo sapiens) have been around for some 100,000 years, give or take. Until about six or seven thousand years ago, after the end of the most recent ice age, humans were a bunch of wandering hunter-gatherers. They made some great cave paintings, but other than that and a few gnawed bones, they made nothing and left nothing behind. Then, when the ice age ended, they spontaneously dropped their fur cloaks, stopped hunting woolly mammoths and invented agriculture, the wheel, cuneiform, beer, and everything else that makes up civilization.

The problem with this picture, of course, is that the ice age didn't cover the entire earth with ice -- just some of the parts we live on now. And because there was so much more ice, there was less water, and sea levels were some 100-odd meters lower than at present.

So all the best land, the fertile, coastal land, during the ice age -- the era immediately preceeding the first great civilizations of the near easy -- is now underwater.

In _Eden in the East_, Oppenheimer focuses on the great Sunda Shelf in southeast Asia, which in the last ice age was a continent-sized land mass (now sometimes called "Sundaland"). His thesis is that the great civilizations of the near east did not spring whole cloth from the soil, but were founded, or informed, or guided, by refugees from the east, refugees fleeing the great destruction of their homeland with the submergence of the Sunda Shelf.

He argues for his thesis on the basis of genetic, linguistic and mythological studies, all appearing to show a diffusion of culture and people from some prehistoric Sundaland home. The arguments are varied and interesting, maybe even compelling. Certainly they are worth reading.

But they are also very difficult to read. This is a dense book, almost five hundred pages in the edition I have and written in a fairly dry, scholarly tone. So read it, but be warned.

If you're interested in the argument that human prehistory is to be sought in the lands that sank beneath the waves at the end of the last ice age, check out Graham Hancock's book _Underworld_ (already published here in the UK and coming to America soon). Hancock does not focus exclusively on Sundaland, but his arguments and evidences are complementary to those adduced by Oppenheimer. Hancock is less scholarly and more chronological in his approach; _Underworld_ is all first person and very readable.

Mixed Bag.......2000-11-24

Mr Oppenheimer's book has some interesting ideas in prehistory of SE Asia and counter againist an entrenched European centric view of civilzation and shows some good evdiance in that Prehistoric South East Asians may have been more advanced than we previsoly suspect. However Mr Oppenheimer is not an archeologist or a scienist who does work in these fields and some of his theories seem way out of there. For instance in SE Asia there is an division of people who are lighter skinned and have mongoliod charasctces and must have shared an common recent ansectry with the Chinese and Nergiod looking people who look like Australian aborigines, which must told an recent story of invaders from the North.

The Drowned and the Saved (Abacus Books)

Average customer rating:

As important as a book gets
Astonishing and Vivid
A must for students of ethics
Thoughtful, intelligent, meaningful, and universal.
Encourages introspection

The Drowned and the Saved (Abacus Books)
Primo Levi
Manufacturer: Abacus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Poland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Survival In Auschwitz
The Reawakening
The Periodic Table
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Classics)
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

ASIN: 0349100470

Amazon.com

This book, published months after Italian writer Primo Levi's suicide in 1987, is a small but powerful look at Auschwitz, the hell where Levi was imprisoned during World War II. The book was his third on the subject, following Survival in Auschwitz (1947) and The Reawakening (1963). Removed from the experience by time and age, Levi chose to serve more as an observer of the camp than the passionate young man of his previous work. He writes of "useless violence" inflicted by the guards on prisoners and then concludes the book with a discussion of the Germans who have written to him about their complicity in the event. In all, he tries to make sense of something that--as he knew--made no sense at all.

Book Description

Levi wrote of the moral collapse that occurred in Auschwitz and the fallibility of human memory that allows such atrocities to recur. Levi's last book published before his death in 1987.

Customer Reviews:

As important as a book gets.......2007-08-04

It is redundant to praise this book or describe its background, which has been done very well by other reviewers. This was Levi's final wrestling with the implications of what he called the Lager (he didn't use the term 'Holocaust'), not only as he experienced it, but more generally.

Just a few points that may be less obvious. Levi never uses the phrase "survivor guilt," and his choice of terms was never without consideration. Rather, he uses the term, "shame." The chapter that goes by that name is an enormously subtle and evolving one. Levi continues to probe the feeling as he recalls it after "liberation," and there are at least five different concepts of what that "shame" entailed, no one of which did Levi think was definitive. By the way, none of Levi's definitions are the same as the popular notion of "survivor" guilt - that one feels guilty simply for having survived while others did not. The closest he comes is to talk about surviving "in place of another," which is a more complex idea. It refers specifically to the nature of the camps themselves, a horrific "laboratory," as Levi put it, in which selections, influence, luck and more did mean that one's survival always came at someone else's cost. This is a sociological point. It would not the case, for example, for the survivor of a tornado or earthquake.

Second, the "grey zone" is very often misinterpreted to suggest that perpetrators and victims met in some "middle ground" somewhere. Levi is definitive about this. The responsibility of the killers and the victims are in no sense, and in no context, equivalent. But in the squalid and horrific world that was the lager, there was an enormous range of types and characters. Levi is arguing mostly against what he calls "stereotypes" - convenient simplifications.

Finally, it may be of interest that "the drowned and the saved" was intended by Levi to be the title of his first book, If This is a Man (known in the U.S. as Survival in Auschwitz). His publisher disagreed, although there is a chapter in If This is a Man called Drowned and Saved. Levi's preoccupation with the role in the camp of differences in power, privilege, luck, and alliances-of-convenience runs throughout his work. It is a topic that still deserves much more attention than it has received.

Astonishing and Vivid.......2007-07-12

Primo Levi's final memoir about the Nazi Holocaust is among the most provocative and compelling accounts of the Shoah in the entire literature. Indeed, it is one of the great political memoirs of recent years. Levi was an Italian chemist, anti-Nazi activist, and Jew who was sent to Auschwitz and famously documented the atrocities that he experienced in `Survival at Auschwitz,' one of the first memoirs to be widely read in Germany. This book is a profoundly introspective rumination, not on the particular horrors of the camps, but of their philosophical implications for human beings as a whole. In `The Grey Zone,' Levi explores the moral ambiguity of this moment in history, both in terms of the work of the Kapos and the rare but meaningful resistance from the Germans. Levi is open to the possibility of a moral spectrum, yet he remains unequivocally vociferous in his condemnation of National Socialism, and of the German people's complicity with this movement. There are many striking and haunting moments in `The Drowned and the Saved,' such as Levi's discussion of the Musselman, or the experience of palpable shame on the part of the Jewish victims. This book is a special memoir because Levi refuses to draw the reader via an explicit recollection of the litany of horrors that he experienced, but because he is willing to penetrate into the meaning and truth of the holocaust as human abomination. A true masterpiece, both in approach and in execution.

A must for students of ethics.......2004-09-18

This is a book that causes the reader to reconsider, reflect critically one's own views, marvel at the level of depravity to which humans can steep, and is one which I imagine should be a standard text in ethics courses.
But it also raises questions of memory and the mind"s ability to adjust, amend and retool. Mr Levi must stand as one of that sad century's most astonishing examples of positive human achievement .

Thoughtful, intelligent, meaningful, and universal........2003-01-21

"The Drowned and the Saved" is the final book of Primo Levi (1919-1987), a Jewish-Italian chemist who survived the death camp of Auschwitz, and turned to authorship in his later years. This book is a group of a half-dozen related essays, each exploring a specific aspect of Levi's view of the Holocaust's causes and effects.

He begins with the concept of "good faith", wondering whether believing a lie excuses it. He notes that oppressors lie to save themselves from believing they are evil, and victims lie to save themselves from believing they suffer. He explores the moral zone between black and white, noting that anybody can be a tough killer or a foolish victim: we are all tyrants and victims in our own way.

He examines survivor's guilt, and reflects on the roles of luck versus blessing in life, and discusses the ways humans need communication to survive, including the way victims bend language to disguise their intentions, and tyrants twist it to cause confusion among their victims.

He tries to distinguish between rationalized evil and collective madness. He believes the spirit and mind can be injured just as the body can, and wonders how a person's perspective plays a role in their survival and psychological health. He describes the various stereotypes people hold when they imagine the stories of those who lived through WWII, e.g., the romantic hero, the evil Nazi, the prisoner who always plots escape, and so on, but explains why they are rough and inaccurate.

Each chapter is like a conversation with an intelligent and qualified author. It is thoughtful, and a pleasure to read. It reflects on psychological and historical themes which are important not only to our understanding of the Holocaust, but also more generally human nature. (It appears to be a rumination on subjects discussed in his other books, collected and summarized briefly here.) It is for this reason that the book is successful. It considers the Holocaust in particular, but its themes are actually deeper and more universal.

"Letters from Germans", the penultimate chapter, is the book's most powerful, noticeably demonstrating the tension between his memory of that time period, and the memory of various Germans, in their own words. He especially berates those who believe they are doing the right thing by speaking out in shame and guilt over theit past, perhaps attacking them a bit harshly, but certainly with justification. The last chapter, "Conclusion", is its weakest. In the opinion of this reviewer, it over-generalizes, and tries to apply retrospective analysis to the world's future. It also calls for unwarranted conclusions, unrelated to the preceding chapters, and perhaps contradicts itself. Luckily it is brief, and does not detract from the excellence of the prior explorations.

(For example, he says war is unecessary, and mankind can settle all conflicts around a table, but only as long as we are in good faith. He then calls Hitler a buffoon, implying he cannot be taken in good faith. He next says we need not have good faith to negotiate if we are all equally in fear of war, but this sounds like he is saying war is necessary after all, even if only to remind us there are punishments for negotiation in bad faith!)

Despite its conclusion (which many readers will probably enjoy, despite this reviewer's belief it over-reaches), the book is an intelligent and even-handed, but personal assessment of the Holocaust, written in an engaging and intelligent style, with brevity and wit. At 200 pages, it is easy to read. Packed with philosophy and insight, it is worth the investment.

Encourages introspection.......2002-05-03

Primo Levi suggests that perceiving the experiences of others is extremely difficult and grows more so as the distance in time, space, and quality increases. "We are prone to assimilate them to 'related' ones, as if the hunger in Auschwitz were the same as that of someone who has skipped a meal, or as if escape from Treblinka were similar to an esacpe from an ordinary jail."

Book Description

In the 21st century, fluctuations in solar radiation have caused the ide-caps to melt and the seas to rise. Global temperatures have climbed, and civilization has retreated to the Arctic and Antarctic circles. London is a city now inundated by a primeval swamp, to which an expedition travels to record the flora and fauna of this new Triassic Age.

This early novel by the author of CRASH and EMPIRE OF THE SUN is at once a fast paced narrative, a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and a speculative foray into the workings of the unconscious mind.

Customer Reviews:

Sweet feverish dream.......2007-08-30

I loved this book only recently read even if its writing is up to '60s.

The world is covered by water, cities are blue lagoons surrounded by jungles and reptiles and iguanas. Men are dying: everywhere the temperature rises and the sun becomes bigger and bigger in the eyes of the survivors...

Ballard depicts the new environment with scientific precision, but it is the psychological analysis of the characters that strucks deeply the reader: humankind is regressing to the triassic era and the humans ancestral fears and obsessions take hold of their mind. Rationality progressively disappear and only the sun remains, beating as a colossal red heart in the mind of Kerans.

Wow, the water of the lagoons is a warm primordial soup and Kerans looks forward to plunge into it and to never resurface again...

Oneiric and strangely realistic.

The Drowned World.......2006-01-08

Every article, biographapical sketch or plaudit for J. G. Ballard must mention the fact that he was never popular, but hugely important due to his influence on later SF writers. Ballards lack of popular success is hardly inexpliccable. All of his writing explores his philosophical views on the human race: imminent decline, helplessness of the individual, frailty of the human genome and human civilization. These ideas, while powerful, don't generally lend themselves to compelling plots and characters. Perhaps for this reason, Ballard was best as a short story writer. His novels, including "The Drowned World", tend to start strong but finish weak.

We find ourselves with Kerans, one of a reconaissance group sent to explore the jungles of Europe. The narrative informs us that solar flares and atmospheric disintegration sparked massive global warming, upheaving the world's climate and wiping out most of civilization. A few survivors cling to existence in the arctic regions, but most of the world is overgrown with new plants and ruled by giant reptiles. Moreover, the heat and sunshine are having strange psychological effects on the remaining people; one character suggests that lingering racial memories from before the dawn of man are the cause.

This is the good section of the novel. The ideas are clear, the actions are logical, and Ballard's writing is, as always, lavish:

"Overhead the sky was vivid and marbled, the black bowl of the lagoon, by contrast, infinitely deep and motionless, like an immense well of amber. The tree-covered buildings emerging from its rim seemed millions of years old, thrown up out of the Earth's magma by some vast natural cataclysm, embalmed in the gigantic interval of time that had elapsed during their subsidence."

Ballard does an excellent job of capturing how this environment affects the men with sluggishness and gradually breaks down their resolve.

Regrettably, anyone who published a science fiction novel in the 60's had to fulfill certain expectations, along the lines off strutting heros and villains, damsels in distress, shoot-outs and last-minute rescues. Ballard delivers all this in the second (and lesser) half of the novel, when a strongman named Strangman and a gang of uncivilized toughs arrive from the south. These elements never quite fit with the mood established earlier in the book. Ballard's purpose, obviously, is to suggest that these folk have accepted the new order and humanity's new place in the world. However, their behavior doesn't catch on as realistic, and the book suffers as a result.

An interesting spin on the genre.......2005-06-01

Unlike most entries in the post-apocalyptic fiction genre, J. G. Ballard's "The Drowned World" deals not with the immediate aftermath of a global calamity, but with the long-term psychiatric implications of such an event. Set some eighty years after an increase in solar activity has rendered most of the earth a tropical swamp, Ballard explores the human reaction to such a rapid change in geography and society at the most primal level.

As such, it has more in common with the likes of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" than "Alas, Babylon" or other contemporary works of apocalyptic fiction. In fact, in many ways it presents itself as a post-modern retelling of Conrad's journey into man's baser instincts. The main character, Dr. Kerans is an admirable stand in for Marolow, as like his literary predecessor he is both drawn to and repelled by his surroundings and what they do to him and those around him. Likewise, his aptly named nemesis Strangman is so reminiscent of Kurtz, including his almost cult-like relationship with Africans (more on that later) it is difficult not to picture him as a Marlon Brando type character.

However, what separates the two novels, and keeps "The Drowned World" from being entirely derivative, is that Marlow has a civilization, a real civilization, to fall back upon. No matter his descent into the unknown, both internally and externally, there is always a thread, however tenuous, that he can use to pull himself back up out of the primitive. Kerans, on the other hand, is stuck in a global Congo, and the so-called civilization he could fall back upon is a mere shell of what it was, scratching out an existence above the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. As such, his backward drift into the primeval is both more intense and ultimately irrevocable.

It is this backwards drift into something more primitive, but somehow better adapted to this new world that forms the compelling core of the narrative. His discussion of genetic memory, of the hard-coding of our response to our environment by millions of years of evolution is both believable and engaging, and has at least some foundation in fact as reflected by man's near universal dislike of such things as spiders and snakes. Wisely, Ballard doesn't attempt to draw any definitive conclusions, but rather leaves open the question of whether evolution is a one way street, or whether mankind is truly as adaptable as we suppose.

Nicely juxtaposing this inner change is the change in society that necessarily attends such a radical change in the environment. Most of what is left of civilization is regimented under a quasi-military system, apparently under the auspices of the U.N., and what is left of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Existing outside of this society are those who either refuse to let go, or who scratch out a living in a piratical sort of existence. Strangman is one of the latter, and he forms Ballard's most compelling character.

Not explicitly bad, although almost certainly insane, he forms the question of whether the necessities of survival trump twentieth century morality, or if the two need not be mutually exclusive. As I mentioned above, his troop of African's forms the most puzzling aspect of "The Drowned World". It is unclear whether Ballard is indicating that because they are black they are more primitive mentally, or because they came from a more primitive setting geographically, they are better equipped for survival in this new world. Based upon the overall context of the novel I'm inclined to argue that the latter is the case, but I would be hard-pressed to categorically refute those who see racist overtones.

Ultimately, "The Drowned World" is worth reading for its uniqueness in the genre. Forgoing questions of surivival which are taken as a given, it plumbs the depths of the human psyche looking for a more profound response to natural disaster. As Kerans slips deeper into his own mind the reader is left to question just how robust a creature man is. With our long-term survival left in doubt, Ballard leaves open the possibility of man evolving into something else or just going extinct. Although sometimes a little prone to lecturing, "The Drowned" world is still a fascinating and genuinely original contribution to the genre.

Jake Mohlman

The world ends, not with a bang, but a gurgle.......2002-12-03

The cover of my version has a lizard sitting quite happily on some poor guy's face, which is the only part of his body sticking out of the water. For some reason, I really like it. This would be considered atypical SF if it came out today, I can't even imagine the reaction back in the sixties when this was first published, especially to an audience that had been raised on an audience of big guns and fast spaceships and heroes who solved problems by punching aliens in the face. Ballard's novel isn't about saving the world, in fact, the world is well past that point by the time the book opens and it's only going to get worse, all the people left can do is figure out how to live with the changes. As you can probably surmise from the title, climatic changes and the melting of the polar ice caps have caused the water levels in the world to rise, putting most cities under water and turning the world nearly into one big tropical ocean. This change is more than just cosmetic since it's apparently resurrecting racial memories buried deep within the collective unconscious, thus people start having weird dreams about times when the world used to be like this. Action packed? Not really. Hallucinogenic? At times. Different? You bet. Ballard succeeds mostly on the strength of his ability to convey this flooded, humid world in all its declining glory. The protagonists wander about almost aimlessly, not even sure why they do what they do. The "villains" of the piece provide a nice counterpoint to all the gloomy stuff but in the end serve as little more than a distraction, albeit a strangely entertaining one. In the end it doesn't cohere as nicely as the slightly better (in my opinion) "The Crystal World" where Ballard's prose is more finely polished in all its hazy glory, while the protagonist can be more easily identified with by the reader. The stuff with the pirates that take up most of the middle of the book is fun, but serves as little more than a backdrop and a soggy world just doesn't have that eerie outerworldy quality of a planet slowly turning to crystal. Also, the whole "racial memory" thing, while you could probably write a book on it, isn't really dealt with in any sort of detail here, it sort of pops up again when it's convenient. Still, for a debut this is a heck of a lot better than anything I could do and it's safe to say Ballard got a lot better real fast. Even then, this is a fine book well worth your time, because whatever Ballard does, he does better than just about anyone else.

Back in print..........2000-10-16

This is one of my favorite Ballard novels and it's certianly got the hothouse waterworld-meets-heart-of-darkness atmosphere going to stir up that primordial fear in your gut. You can feel the sufficating swamp gas in the air like you are in a giant pressure cooker! (actually the waterworld comparison is pretty cheap on my part because it was an incredibly silly movie and has little in common with this book other than taking place in the future where the world is virtually covered with water...but you get the idea). Ballard has the uncanny ability to burrough under your skin with somewhat hypnotic prose. Definitely a mood piece and not your typical sci-fi. Don't order from Amazon.com though beacuse 20 dollars too expensive for a 190 page paperback and you'll get it a lot quicker (about 5 days total) from Amozon.co.uk (since it is unfortunately only published in the UK). One of my three favorite Ballard novels.

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The Drowned World
J. G. Ballard
Manufacturer: Berkley Medallion
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000HBB9PC

The Drowned World & The Wind From Nowhere

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The Drowned World & The Wind From Nowhere

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000EALEIS

The Drowned World and the Wind from Nowhere

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The Drowned World and the Wind from Nowhere
J. G. Ballard
Manufacturer: Doubleday & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GK9IUW

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All the Drowned Sailors
Highly factual yet captures the horror of what happened
Compelling story of a ghastly wartime incident

All the drowned sailors
Raymond B Lech
Manufacturer: Military Heritage Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

World War I | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

All the Drowned Sailors.......2003-11-06

This may be the most poorly written historic non-fiction book I have ever read. It's amazing that any publisher would agree to print this dull rehash of a subject covered so much more successfully before and since, including a national best seller.

Highly factual yet captures the horror of what happened.......2002-01-08

The book is simply a detailed story of the sailors aboard the USS Indianapolis. It would be an excellent reference for someone researching the tragedy of the USS Indianapolis' last voyage, and the book is also great for someone who wants to know what happened.

The book is well thought out and very through. It covers the tragedy from beginning to end. It talks about the sailing orders, the route on the vessel's last journey, what happened from the US and the Japanese point of view, stories from sailors who survived the attack, the alleged errors made by the Navy, and the trial of Captain McVay.

While I perceived the book as highly factual, it was hard not to be saddened by the stories told by the surviving crew. My heart felt heavy while reading stories of sailors wounded during the initial torpedoing of the ship who never had a chance as the ship sank beneath them, stories of sailors who made it out only to suffer from sun exposure, dehydration, starvation, and photophobia. The book had stories of men who died heroically trying to save others and men who died as they lost their mental reasoning and tried to swim to far away places.

This book is great! It has the facts behind what happened so you can draw your own conclusions about who was at fault, and it had the testimonies of horror experienced by the people who survived

Compelling story of a ghastly wartime incident.......2000-05-16

On July 30, 1945, four days after the USS Indianapolis delivered the first operational atomic bomb to the island of Tinian (and exactly a week before that bomb would be dropped on Hiroshima), the unescorted heavy cruiser was torpedoed on its way to the Philippines by a Japanese submarine. The Navy never noticed that the ship did not reach its destination; 300 sailors went down with the ship, and 900 others floundered in the water for four days -- starving, drowning, and attacked by sharks, before being accidentally spotted by a passing bomber. Only 316 members of the original 1,196-man crew survived.

Several books have been published about the hapless ship, and how the Navy courtmartialed and blamed its captain so that he died a broken and alcoholic man. This is the only one I have read, so I don't know how it compares, but it's competently written and the tale is irresistable.

Some of the images make indelible imprints on the mind: "The doctor [Lt. Cmdr. Lewis Leavitt Haynes] continued to pronounce men dead. He would remove their jackets, recite the Lord's Prayer, and release the bodies. The water was very clear, and Doctor Haynes remembered the bodies looking like small dolls sinking in the deep sea. He watched them until they faded from sight."

Book Description

The volume deals with major debates in India's environmental history. It critiques existing discourse by discussing colonial flood control strategies in eastern India. It explores the idea and practice of flood control and argues for a comprehensive reconsideration of the debate on the
colonial environmental watershed, its hydraulic legacy and questions contemporary enthusiasm for flood control in post-independent India. The emphasis is on revealing how colonial flood control measures were implicated in attempts to consolidate capitalist relations in ownership, production, and
towards commanding the deltaic rivers as a 'natural resource' for capitalist accumulation. The idea and practice of flood control was not merely a technical intervention but principally a political project, deeply implicated in the social, economic and political calculations of capitalism in general
and colonialism in particular. Such an analytical perspective also provides a useful backdrop to understanding several aspects of the contemporary water crisis in postcolonial India. The book also intends to be a necessary corrective and a useful addition to the otherwise limited writings on the
Indian subcontinent's hydraulic histories.

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The Drowned World
J. G. Ballard
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KP5L9U

Average customer rating:

The Drowned World
J.G. Ballard
Manufacturer: Dragon's Dream
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 9063327714

Product Description

Synopsis A debut novel, set in London in the near future. The capital city has been flooded and transformed into a tropical location where social aberrations only serve as an indicator of the level of corruption of the modern mentality.

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